History of the contact lens

Much sources tell of the history of the contact lens, but all credit the same Italian masterbrain as the inventor of the contact lens: Leonardo da Vinci. In da Vinci's 1508 Codex of the eye, Manual D, where he described a method of directly altering corneal power by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Leonardo, however, did not suggest his idea be used for correcting vision--he was more interested in learning about the mechanisms of accommodation of the eye.

His sketch was never realized but showed great foresight in the world of vision. It was actually 300 years after da Vinci before the concept was realized. Sir John Herschel, an English astronomer, hatched the idea of molding a person’s eyes to fit for contact lenses. The year was 1827; unfortunately there was not much demand for his product. Another fifty years passed before there was an additional advancement in the field.

In 1887, F.A. Muller, a German glassblower elaborated on Mueller’s idea and created the first documented glass contact lens. History does not tell us who volunteered to “try out’ his experiment. A year later, A.E. Fick (a physician) and Edouard Kalt (an optician) used a version of Muller’s glass lens to correct vision problems. Again, there was not much demand for the product. Imagine placing a piece of glass in your eye, it was a rather uncomfortable task. If the person were able to insert the glass contact into his eye, he would only be able to wear it for a very short time. One had to be careful not to scratch the cornea. Some of these first contacts covered the entire eye area. The eye was unable to breathe and infections were an issue. Most people opted to continue wearing their glasses.

In New York, an inventor/optometrist felt that adding plastic to the glass lens would improve the comfort of the fit. In 1936, William Feinbloom announced his invention. It was 12 years before Kevin Tuohy produced a lens made entirely of plastic in California. Since that time, the progress of the contact has been relentless. Gas permeable lens, extended wear lens, and frequent replacement lens have all found a niche in the world of eye vision. Contacts can benefit patients after a cataract operation, improve poor vision (far and near sighted), and change the color of your eyes. People with a stigmatism can now wear contact lenses. Some contacts exist that have odd patterns such as the bull’s eye, cat eye, and reptilian eye. 90% of the contacts sold in America today are soft lenses. Those lenses are made up of a soft, water-absorbing product called hydroxyenthyl methacrylate invented by Dr. Lim in Czechoslovakia in 1950.

In 1999, an important development was the launch of the first 'silicone hydrogels' onto the market. These new materials encapsulated the benefits of silicone, which has extremely high oxygen permeability, with the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels which had been used for the previous 30 years. These lenses were initially advocated primarily for extended (overnight) wear although more recently, daily (no overnight) wear silicone hydrogels have been launched.

Sources:
1. EyeTopics, the history of contact lenses
2. AC, history of the contact lens